Benefits of Sharing Your Data

sharing data reinforces open scientific inquiry, encourages diversity of analysis and opinion, promotes new research, makes possible the testing of new or alternative hypotheses and methods of analysis, supports studies on data collection methods and measurement, facilitates the education of new researchers, enables the exploration of topics not envisioned by the initial investigators, and permits the creation of new datasets when data from multiple sources are combined.

Data sharing happens across a spectrum of access, audiences, and security levels. Terms for data sharing differ across research communities. Decisions about sharing data require considering the following issues:

What are your ethical and legal obligations? Is there a need for confidentiality, privacy, or other protections?